Q: You write, “Searching for the true origins of the fatal
hatred between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr is like trying to trace the
wind to its source.” How did you research this book, and how did you reach your
conclusions about the dynamic between them?

A: The way I work is that I find the skeleton and work out
from there—the organs, and the flesh. Where I started was with the basic
outline everybody knows—two men pointed guns at each other in 1804 and one died.
I wondered why? What got them there?

It was not so much working backward, but working down—the
backgrounds of their lives. I went to Nevis; I learned about Princeton and
Elizabethtown. After a while, you get a sense of what’s down there.

It’s very much like archaeology—there’s a shard there, and
you discover that it was an altar, and you dig deeper, and discover that it was
part of a ritual service. Then you discover there’s a whole city down there. I
understood over time how much more there was to it...

A book of this kind is successful to the extent that you
can evoke the look and feel of the period…you know how you got from place to
place. Washington got around in a canary yellow coach. If you leave the details
out, you’re missing an important [part] of Washington and of people’s
expectations for him. I wanted the book to be as cinematic as possible.

Q: What are some of the most common perceptions and
misperceptions about Hamilton and Burr?

A: The worst misconception…is this story of a saint and a
sinner: Hamilton was the best man ever; Burr was the worst man ever. Not
exactly!

Hamilton had lots of flaws. He was on the way down at the
time he died. There is so little understanding of the emotional aspects of his
life. He fought for his ideals but didn’t connect so well with people.
[George] Washington had great love for him; he didn’t return it. [His wife] had great
love for him; it was not clear how well he returned it…

There was a misunderstanding of human dynamics. He proved to
be a poor leader of the Federalist Party and a poor appraiser of men. If he
derided Burr at every turn, Burr might get angry. That didn’t occur to
Hamilton.

Is Burr a sinner? Not entirely. We are applying our terms to
them, and finding them wanting. We track back from his killing Hamilton and
assume he was a murderer. That’s unfair because it was a duel of honor, which he
followed. Then the rules changed on him. He wasn’t an upholder of honor but a
murderer. That image was carried down.

Then there was the lunatic effort on his part to detach the
Western element of the [United States].

The seminal incident in his life occurred when he was 2—both
parents and his grandparents died. That has to have an effect on a person. I
feel sympathy for him, though some of what he did was misguided.

Q: You write, “Highly publicized duels enjoyed something of
a revival in New York City at the turn of the nineteenth century.” Why was
that, and how did public opinion at the time view dueling?

A: I think it owed to the fact that politics post-Washington
were in tremendous upheaval. When [Thomas] Jefferson offered a counter to Washington’s
Federalist regime, it put in play two divergent views, and churned up a lot of
public sentiment—like our time now, there was a lot of anger on both sides.

There was a lot of jockeying for position—the Jeffersonians
replacing the Washington employees—you are always going to get people against
each other. There were always duels, but it was more accelerated around this
time.

There was popular revulsion around the duel Hamilton and
Burr fought. Suddenly, duels were considered not affairs of honor but murder
cases. Why would you want to get involved in that?

That caused a reconsideration of duels. It led to their
being a bygone thing…

Q: You note in the book that Hamilton’s last letter was
written to your ancestor, Theodore Sedgwick. What role did your interest in
that letter play in your decision to write this book?

A: It was in the background. I had known about it, but never
read it until 2006, roughly, and that book I was doing research for was out in
2007. This one was out late last year. It was a long delay.

I had decided on the strength of the Sedgwick book that I
was more interested than I thought I ever would be in history—but not as
history, but for the stories it provided that led to the present.

I was always interested in politics, and I thought political
crime or violence would be wonderful in book terms, dramatic for me. I looked
into Garfield and McKinley [and then thought] what about this duel?

It had been [written about], but poorly. It was written
about in biographies of the two protagonists, but only one side. There was a
book about the duel, but I felt it was not as complete and cinematic as I
wanted. That was the opening.

Then I thought of the letter—and everything clicked
together. The letter does say a lot about what Hamilton had in his mind when
went off to the [duel].

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m writing a book about the Cherokee…I got interested in
the Civil War. I thought I would go marching through the major wars of our
country. I was surprised to learn that almost 30,000 Indians fought in the war,
from 19 tribes.

One of the very few tribes where Indians came in on both
sides was the Cherokee. I tracked back the explanation--it came to rival chiefs
in the 1830s in the run-up to the Trail of Tears.

There were two rival chiefs. One took one side to remain
there, the other said to cut their losses and start afresh in Oklahoma. The two
had been fast friends but came to a bitter enmity that did not stop, and led to
one having the other killed.

It broke into a clan war, and led to a civil war within the
Nation that spilled over into the national Civil War. It was an extraordinary
conflagration that came from one spark between two men.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I guess one of the things I would like people to
understand about the past as it pertains to the Founding Fathers is that they
were mere people, very much flesh and blood. We think of them as marble figures
or waxworks…

These were very much flesh and blood men who had all the
limitations people have—they were jealous, small-minded…all the things
politicians are.

The difference was that they had a remarkable man, George
Washington, there to corral them….everything fell into place in an unlikely
way, not because they were perfect but because their imperfections meshed and
Washington was there to oversee them.

Q: You write that your agent waited five years for you to
decide to write your memoir. Why did you opt not to write it initially, and
what made you decide to do it?

A: My literary agent approached me—my brother [journalist Peter Alexander] did a story
about me for the Today show—he approached me, and I thought, What do I have to
say? I wasn’t quite ready. All my writing was journal writing. As it turned
out, that was the best kind of writing.

After we started a nonprofit organization—there was no organization
specifically for Usher III—I did a spinathon. It was written up in The New York
Times, and my literary agent reached out to me again.

I’d been approached by another literary agent for me and my
brother to write a book. There was no way I could pin my brother down, and it
wasn’t really his story, [although] it was great he got the word out about
Usher Syndrome.

Q: What do you hope readers take away from your book?

A: I think the most important thing—I was pretty
disappointed [to] find the book in the disability section. It was such a
bummer. We still live in a world that’s closed-minded. We’re still very much
not a totally inclusive society.

Having a disability doesn’t mean that’s who you are. We’re
all dealing with something. People who identify with my book are not
necessarily people with disabilities. My process is similar to other people’s—a
journey toward self-acceptance. I found the book on the disability shelf, and
thought, We have a lot of work to do.

Having Usher Syndrome—on the one hand, people could say,
That’s the worst thing. There’s no question on some days I feel terribly sad.
[But] if it weren’t for Usher Syndrome, I never would have learned sign
language and tactile sign language, or recognized how fragile life can be…

I don’t think people look at me and say, She’s going deaf
and blind. You don’t know what people are going around with.

Q: What advances have been made regarding Usher Syndrome Type III in recent years?

A: Stem cell research is really important, and there was a
big step back when stem cell research was put on hold. All different types of
conditions could benefit from stem cell research.

Twenty years ago, I was told that in 10 years there would be
something to stop it. Ten years ago, I was told that in 10 years there would be
something to stop it. Now here we are.

I’m very hopeful. There’s a lot of work in gene therapy—to
bypass the retinal cells and go into the ganglion cells. The same way we use a
cochlear implant to hear. There’s a lot of promising research. I’m hopeful, but
we’re not there yet. [The timing] is hard to know. I try to remain cautiously
optimistic.

It was a deliberate decision I made, to become the poster
child for Usher Syndrome. The word has to get out there. It doesn’t affect as
many people as cancer…it’s an orphan disease.

Type III affects a very limited number of people, but that
doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look for a cure. The more awareness people have, the
more people can be diagnosed, and the more people can help.

Q: You write, “With two of my senses vastly diminished, I
cherish the others…” How have your other senses been affected by your decreasing
sight and hearing?

A: Everybody in my life knows I’m a bloodhound. My brother
says, I need you to come to the fridge—something’s gone bad, and I need you to
sniff out [what it is].

Living in New York City with a strong sense of smell is not
the best thing! I can name any perfume someone is wearing. I have a patient who
stopped smoking. Five or six months after, I said, You’ve been smoking again!
He said, Three days ago, I had a cigarette. I could still smell it. Often,
smells are very faint but I still smell it. My sense of touch is very
heightened too.

Q: Humor seems like a very important part of your life. How
has your sense of humor affected you?

A: Going deaf and blind can be terribly tragic, but insanely
funny too. Running head-on into something [isn’t] funny, but I was standing and
talking to a column for five minutes before I realized I was talking to a
column!

My answer may be totally off –[I’m asked] What salad do you
want, and I say, It was so much fun! There’s a lot that’s absurd about it.

Today I thought I had a black camisole under my sweater, and
I realized it was a workout top! These are things that happen. You can choose
to feel terrible, or just roll your eyes and say, This is life.

My best guy friend, Alan, sometimes when we’re sitting next
to each other…he will pull my hearing aid out of my ear and put it next to his
mouth and say hello. It’s funny…

Q: How did you decide on the book’s title, and what does it
signify for you?

A: I didn’t like the title. It was as if there was a vote on
it and I lost! Originally it was going to be "Dancing in the Dark." But some
people had concerns it would sound like the Bruce Springsteen song—about him
meeting a younger woman and having sex, or something.

My literary agent came up with "Not Fade Away," and my editor
thought that was brilliant. It’s also a song.

I didn’t like it because there is the word “Not”—I don’t
like a negative word in the title. It’s the idea that I’ve had all these
memories, and they won’t fade away even if I can’t see or hear what I could at
the time. There are still things I remember vividly…

Q: Are you going to write another book?

A: I’d like to. So much has happened since the book was
published. I would like to, in all my free time!

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I really think my book’s message to everyone is whatever
you’re facing, you’re not alone. We all have something. There is a tremendous
sense of loneliness when you go through adversity. It’s important to find
community.

Reading about how people came to terms with their situation,
I always found things I could relate to. It’s so important to read about
others’ experiences and realize we are all in the same boat, trying to do our
best.

Q: Why did you decide to write about the Sino-Indian War of
1962, and why is it a “forgotten crisis”?

A: It’s a forgotten crisis for an understandable reason—in
October and November of 1962, Americans’ attention, and the globe’s attention,
was focused on Cuba and the Soviet deployment of missiles.

Had that crisis not have been resolved the way it was, it
would have meant the end of mankind. The risk of failure in the Cuban Missile
Crisis was nuclear Armageddon. It tended to push out everything else.

But for two of the largest countries in the world, China and
India, October and November 1962 is remembered for their brief border war,
which ended in a humiliating Indian defeat. It would have been worse had
Kennedy not intervened.

If you look at the two, you think the Cuban Missile Crisis
was John F. Kennedy’s finest hour, but [considering the two crises together]
makes the finest hour even more fine. That’s the real message of the book. The
guy multitasked…at a level that was extraordinary.

I got into the issue writing a previous book about U.S.
relations with India and Pakistan. I came across the 1962 incident and put it
in the back of my mind—there was a whole book to be written about this…

Q: You write, “The events of the autumn of 1962 created the
balance of power, the alliance structure, and the arms race that still prevail
today in Asia.” What are some of the reasons for this legacy?

A: The border dispute between China and India, one of the
causes of the 1962 war, has not been resolved. They continue to have the
longest disputed border in the world.

It affects their relationship. China and India have been in
an arms race since 1962. China has multiple reasons for the buildup, including
the United States, but one is India. India also has [multiple reasons] but one is China. [India
was] the loser in 1962 and they have been trying to build an effective
deterrent since…

India has a second risk calculation, and that is
Pakistan…1962 was the beginning of the China-Pakistan axis of today. In the
last few years China and Pakistan have moved ever closer. Pakistan is the
recipient of Chinese nuclear technology. Today they have an extremely close
relationship.

The triangle of India, China, Pakistan was really set in
motion in 1962, and has been dominating the geopolitics of [the region] ever
since.

Q: In the book, you describe JFK as “the ultimate crisis
manager in 1962.” How did his actions during this “forgotten crisis” compare to
those he took during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

A: I think the Cuban crisis dominated White House attention,
and certainly dominated the press coverage of the White House. What’s
interesting is that in dealing with Cuba, Kennedy turned to a collection of
aides, his Cabinet and senior former officials to get advice—the ExComm.

The advice was very hawkish, and in the end, he rejected the
advice—he did not go for a preemptive strike, but a naval quarantine, and
behind the scenes he was offering Khrushchev a way out.

In the China-India, crisis, he relied almost exclusively on
his ambassador in India, John Kenneth Galbraith, a personal friend, a person
he’d turned to for advice for years. He relied on Galbraith’s advice.

I speculate in the book that I suspect by the end of
October, when the Cuban Missile Crisis was fading out, Kennedy came to the
conclusion that the wisdom of collective advice was not wisdom, and that he was
better off relying on somebody he could trust.

The two decision-making processes reflect a learning curve.
If you ask a group of people for advice, you get group-think.

Q: You also describe the impact Jackie Kennedy had on U.S.
relations with India. What was her role?

A: The first lady, who was if not the youngest, one of the
youngest first ladies, played a very important role in two respects.

First, she was the hostess for state visits by the prime
minister of India, Nehru, and the dictator of Pakistan, Ayub Khan. In that
role, she was always looking for a way to make state visits more unique and
memorable.

For Ayub Khan, she secured the use of Mount Vernon for a
state dinner, for the only time in history. It provided an extraordinary venue,
and a memorable evening. She had a similar idea for Nehru—he was invited to her
family’s home in Newport, Rhode Island, one of the exclusive mansions in the
city.

The second way she played a role was in the spring of 1962,
she traveled to India and Pakistan. John F. Kennedy never traveled to India and
Pakistan as president—he would have, had he lived.

It was the first foreign travel by an American first lady in
the age of television, and it was an incredible success. Hundreds of thousands
of people turned out to welcome her, and it was televised back in the U.S. It
was an important morale-booster for the administration, and an advance in
U.S.-India and U.S.-Pakistan relations.

She was an incredibly classy first lady, very attractive,
handling herself with great dignity and style, conveying that America was a
dynamic, vibrant country—in contrast to the image the communist world wanted to
portray, that they were the future.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m working on a book about U.S. relations with Saudi
Arabia. It doesn’t have any Jackie Kennedy figure in it. In fact, it has no
women in it.

A: I came up with it in the 1980s—my late sister Karen lived
in West Berlin and she started to integrate herself into the Afro-German
community, mostly [people] who had fled violence in Sudan. I was watching how
hard it was to exist [as refugees], and that set in motion the image of a
stateless person, in a land that doesn’t want them.

Q: Why did you create two fictional countries as the book’s
settings?

A: I’ve written 10 books, and this is the first time I’ve
invented nations. I wanted them to seem real, but not beholden to the specific
geopolitical reality of the States or Canada. I wanted to show a government
that was elected on a platform of the deportation of refugees. Sometimes making
up a nation is a way to get the reader to suspend disbelief and follow you, [as
with] Harry Potter or Alice in Wonderland…

Q: You've noted that the book took five years to write. Did you
expect that the issues of immigration and refugees would be such a heated topic
at the time of the book’s release?

A: No, of course not, who could? I live in Canada, and we
have a belief that foreign affairs never affects the outcome of a national
election. In the national election we just had, refugee issues became central
to the way Canadians approached the national election.

I had no way of knowing
that, but refugee crises have [been important] since the end of the Second World War. The fact that we were not at a fever pitch didn’t mean the issues
weren’t serious, just that we weren’t paying attention.

Q: Why did you choose to make your main character, Keita
Ali, a marathon runner?

A: Deciding on the job to give your protagonist is an
interesting task for a novelist. Should she be a midwife? Should he be a rat
catcher? The pursuit you give your character will say a lot about his character.
I could make Keita Ali a nuclear physicist, or a chess player, or a plumber.
But metaphorically, he runs for glory in his own country, he runs for freedom
in his new country—a marathoner was the best way of [showing] a stateless
person without papers. He’s on the run in every way….

It’s a running novel. I wanted the book to feel like a race.
A marathon doesn’t usually start too fast. I wanted the reader to feel like [he
or she is] stepping into a race.

Q: This book brings back some characters who have appeared
in your earlier work. Did you always plan to have the overlap, or was it
something that occurred to you just as you were writing this novel?

A: I had a character I’ve always loved, Yoyo Ali. I thought
I might create a novel around him. This was the best I could do—it’s about his
son. Yoyo makes an appearance in the book; unfortunately he has a sad fate. I
guess I have a sense of a few characters I like playing with. I don’t have all
the answers at the start.

Q: So do you know how your novels will end? Do you plot them
out?

A: Generally I have an idea where the book will end and
start. The challenge is to connect them. It doesn’t mean I won’t change my mind
about the beginning and the end! But I like to pretend I know.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I have three projects that will keep me going. One is the
screenplay adaptation of The Illegal. Just like The Book of Negroes was turned
into a miniseries, it looks like The Illegal will be too.

I’m also working on a new novel, and I’m halfway through a
children’s novel.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about The Illegal?

A: It’s a novel about statelessness, alienation, and grief.
Keita is fleeing a most horrible situation. As the novel unfolds, he is in such
shock, having fled genocide. He doesn’t have a lot to express.

It was a
challenge to write a character who’s a little numb, to construct a novel that
would be dramatic and engaging. I decided to make every secondary character a
moon around the planet that is Keita. They want a piece of the protagonist. I
created very vivid secondary characters, to push the novel into the level of
engaging readers...They have to be very colorful and dramatic because he’s quiet and suffering and
numb. It was a way for me to structure the novel.

Q:
Your website notes that By Accident of Birth is based on a true story. How did
you learn about this story, and why did you choose to write it as a novel
rather than nonfiction?

A:
The only part of the book that is true and the basis of the novel came from two
sources.

One
was a conversation about the Civil War in the setting of two friends
sharing a bottle of bourbon. The doctor friend mentioned that in medical school
a conception such as depicted in the book (I don’t want to give that away here
in order to leave the reader to discover it) was discussed in one of his
medical classes on gynecology.

Much
later while in Vicksburg I picked up at the museum there a copy of an article
from the American Medical Weekly, Vol. 1, No. 19 Louisville, Kentucky, November
7, 1874. The article, credited to L. G. Capers, MD, Vicksburg,
Mississippi, was entitled, "Attention Gynecologist! Notes from the Diary of
a Field and Hospital Surgeon, CSA."

After
reading the article I pondered it. Most think the whole article was a joke
and don’t take it seriously. However, my take was that the doctor was
telling the truth about the conception, which he described in medical detail,
but then made a joke of it at the end to keep himself out of trouble.

That
way he was giving science the idea of the possibility of artificial
insemination and by making a joke at the end kept himself from being attacked
by the very religious populace as was Dr. Frankenstein.

After
all, even in the 21st century there is still much controversy about test-tube
babies, the artificial stimulation of multiple births, cloning, abortion etc. At
the time of the Civil War it was a given that God made babies through
natural conception.

The
doctor in the book treats the conception the same way as Dr. Capers, keeping it
secret at the time and confiding to a friend and fellow physician that if
he ever writes a paper on it he will end in in a joke to keep himself out of
trouble.

Once
I accepted that the 1874 article was telling the medical truth, my
imagination mulled what sort of life in those times would a child of such
conception have.

Out
of those thoughts came Bethany Quinn and By Accident of Birth. The Quinn
name came from my family. My great-great-grandmother was named Nannie
Keturah Quinn. I gave one of the characters her name.

Q:
How did you research the history you depict in the novel?

A:
There was such history, real events, and characters woven in the 50-year span
of the novel that I was forced to do just as much or more research as I had done
for my three previous nonfiction books covering much shorter time spans.

As
a result, I insisted that my publisher include as an appendix the bibliography
of research sources. The reader will find at the back of the book under the
Appendix two and a half pages listing the research material.

I wanted
the reader to know that the true events and characters woven into the fabric of
the book were factual due to painful in-depth research. If they should
want to check any such facts I gave them a roadmap to do so.

Q:
As someone who's written fiction and nonfiction, do you have a preference?

A:
I do not have a preference between fiction and nonfiction. The guide is
what is interesting to me. In nonfiction it is a writer’s duty to give the
reader just that, nonfiction. With nonfiction I want to dig deep in
research to provide true facts in order to give the reader the real
story.

I
do the same for fiction as regards settings, clothing, the times, and any true
historic events or characters woven into the story.

The
big difference is that in nonfiction the writer is confined to facts, events as
they happened and characters as they really were. In fiction, the
writer is free, within the times about which he writes, to let his muse lose to
frolic through comedy and tragedy, elation and doom, love and hate...wherever
the writer goes or is taken. There is fun in that.

Q:
The sequel to By Accident of Birth is set to be published later this year. Did
you plan a two-book series before you started the first novel?

A:
I did not plan a two-book series. The sequel was born from my agent…She liked
the novel so much she did not want to let go of it. She called and said
get busy on the sequel....and it has to be free-standing on its own in case a
reader has not read the first book. It was hard to do, but I love the sequel
and derived much pleasure from writing it. And yes, it took exhaustive
research.

Q:
What are you working on now?

A:
Wouldn’t you know it. I did not plan a trilogy but that evidently
does not matter. Now I find I am tasked with finishing the sequence as a
trilogy. An even harder task but I have gotten over the hardest part…starting
it. Ahead is the surviving Quinns entangled in the Roaring
Twenties, the Depression, Prohibition and the cusp of WWII.

Q:
Anything else we should know?

A:
Yes. My wife, patient woman that she is, takes better care of me than they
would in the great asylum where all writers should be interred. Writers
write because they are driven to do so and thus are gluttons for punishment.
Jack London said before he sold his first story the stack of rejection slips he
had received was as tall as he was.

A:
In the summer of 2013, a friend from Michigan was visiting Washington, D.C. We
were talking over brunch, and he told me he was reading Those Guys Have All
the Fun, which shares behind-the-scenes stories at ESPN, told by the
journalists who worked there.

It
got me thinking that Michigan Daily alumni also have rich, interesting stories
to tell. The 125th anniversary was also coming up in two years, and I thought something
should be done to commemorate the paper and the journalists whose careers
started there.

So
I sent an email to an editor at the University of Michigan Press with my pitch
for the book. He liked it, and three years later, it’s now on bookshelves.

Q:
How were the contributors selected?

A:
There’s over 6,000 students who worked for the Daily since 1890. Not all are
still alive, of course, but I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to narrow it
down. (And I did have a word count restriction.) So I decided to limit it to
alumni who continued to pursue journalism as a career after leaving the Daily.

I
then made a list of successful and recognizable alumni such Adam Schefter, an ESPN
Insider; Michael Rosenberg, a sportswriter at Sports Illustrated; and Jeremy
Peters, a politics reporter at The New York Times.

Just
in the last five years, there’s been a lot of alumni who’ve launched impressive
careers straight after the Daily. These rising journalism stars include
sportswriters Nicole Auerbach at USA Today, Chantel Jennings at ESPN and Tim
Rohan at The New York Times.

In
some cases, I chose contributors based on the story they had to tell. For
example, GQ editor Geoffrey Gagnon was the Daily’s editor-in-chief in 2001, and
I wanted to include a story that revealed what happened in the newsroom on
9/11.

There’s
another infamous story about the Daily starting the rumor that Paul McCartney
had died in 1969. So I asked Columbia Journalism School Professor Leslie Wayne,
the Daily’s managing arts editor at that time, to explain how that story came
to light and why it went viral.

Q:
What did your work on The Michigan Daily mean for you, and what impact has it
had on your career?

A:
Today I’m an assistant health and money editor at U.S. News & World Report
in Washington, D.C.

I
honestly learned everything I need to know for my job now from my time at the Daily
and the year I spent as editor-in-chief in charge of 170 college students.
After working 80+ hours a week and staying up to produce the paper until 3 or 4
a.m. Sunday through Thursday, you’re prepared take on any journalism job after
that.

While
it was stressful and made me question the sanity of college students at times,
it was honestly the best job I think I’ll ever have. Mostly that was because of
the people I worked with. Michael Rosenberg, who was an editor-in-chief in
1996, wrote this in his story for the book, and it really resonated with me:

“I
did not have to spend as much time at the Daily as I did, but I learned one of
the most valuable lessons in life, and it’s not a journalism lesson: If you
love what you do, it won’t feel like work, and you will never feel overworked.
It helps if you love the people who do it alongside you.”

The
editors I worked with remain some of my best friends to this day, and I owe the
Daily for those friendships.

Q:
Do you see common themes running through these essays?

A:
Former Washington Post publisher Phillip Graham once said, “Journalism is the
first rough draft of history.” I think the book provides a look at the first
draft of history – from the perspective of college students.

For
example, Sara Fitzgerald was the editor-in-chief the night the Supreme Court
decided Roe v. Wade and Lyndon B. Johnson died of a heart attack in 1973. In
her essay, Sara describes the feud in the newsroom over which story should run
lede.

As
you can imagine, that was a battle of the sexes. The LBJ headline ultimately
won, but the story shows how the country’s views were changing.

Since
the book starts with the March on Selma in 1965, and goes through Vietnam War
protests, presidential elections and the present day, you can see the shift in
the country’s values as you read through each reporter’s “first rough draft.”

Q:
What do you see looking ahead for the journalism profession?

A:
That’s a really tough question, since this industry is impossible to predict. I
do think there will always be a need for newspapers to report the news, keep communities
informed and act as a check on government officials.

There
just might not be as many newspapers printing those stories off a printing
press. In fact, there are now more college papers than there are daily print
papers in the U.S. The Daily is one example of this trend: It became the only daily
print newspaper in Washtenaw County after the Ann Arbor News shut down in 2009.

But
in an ironic way, the Web has kept the profession afloat. Since I’ve graduated,
it’s been encouraging to see how many journalism positions have opened up to
fill Web production needs, from writing and editing to social media.

My
job itself only exists because U.S. News & World Report stopped printing
the magazine in 2010 and turned into a digital publication.

In
the future, I think we’re going to see more online-only publications enter the
media landscape. It’s been interesting to watch how The Huffington Post,
Buzzfeed and Vox have become real competitors with some of the nation’s legacy
newspapers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

But
the competition is a good thing – it helps keep us journalists on our toes and
striving to produce better work.

Q:
What are you working on now?

A:
Right now, I’m working on presentations for my West Coast book tour stops in February.
Once the tour is over, I’ll be ready to take on a new project, but I’ve told
myself no more Michigan Daily-related books. (I published one in college on Michigan football, compiling photos and
articles from the Daily archives, so this was technically my second Daily
book.)

Q:
Anything else we should know?

A:
What many people find surprising is that the University of Michigan has no
journalism school. The journalism department shut down in 1979, so the students
at the Daily really teach each other everything they need to know, from how to
write a new story to how to take photos.

Some
come to the Daily with high school journalism training, but for the most part,
students come through the doors wanting to try journalism.

In
the case of Shannon Pettypiece, a reporter for Bloomberg, she just wanted to
make friends. Adam Schefter joined the Daily because a fraternity on campus
didn’t have an open spot, and “Michigan’s football office didn’t need another
student intern to pick up dirty jock straps,” as he wrote. “The Michigan Daily turned
away no one. It welcomed all.”

Still,
others join the Daily because they know they want to become journalists, which
was the case for me.

No
matter the reason you join, you get hooked. Best of all, you discover that
editorial freedom means you have the power to change the world with your words.

Monday, January 25, 2016

Marilyn Hilton is the author of the new middle-grade novel Full Cicada Moon. Her other books for young people include the novel Found Things. She has worked as a technical writer and editor, and she is based in California.

Q: In the acknowledgments in Full Cicada Moon, you write, “I wrote [main character] Mimi’s story
in wonder and terror and awe, not knowing if I could or should write it.” Why
did you decide to write it, and why did you question whether you could or
should write it?

A: I wanted to write a story about a girl whose mother was
Japanese and whose father was African American, like my husband—a story that
our children and children like them could see themselves starring in.

But, being of English and Scots descent, at first I felt
that I wasn’t the right person to write this book. I had family stories,
memories of growing up in the 1960s and ‘70s in New England, the experience of
studying in Kyoto the year after graduating from college with a Japanese major,
and a love for history and research.

Then the story didn’t give up on wanting to be told. Soon I
was possessed by Mimi, the 12-year-old protagonist, and her family, the
town they lived in, and the people they met there. So I began writing Full
Cicada Moon despite my fears, approaching the story as thoughtfully and
respectfully as possible, and I loved every moment of it.

Q: Why did you choose 1969 as the year in which to set the
story?

A: From the start, I wanted to isolate Mimi in place and
time so that it was highly likely no one in her new town would have met anyone
like her before. And because the 1960s was such a turbulent decade in U.S.
history, and because Mimi was a strong, determined character who would effect
change in her sphere, it felt right to place her at the end of that decade.

Also, because she dreamed of being an astronaut, there was
no better year than 1969, when the first humans walked on the moon.

Mimi deals not only with racism but also with sexism. She’s
a girl who’s interested in science, doesn’t understand why she’s limited to
learning how to cook and sew, and is fascinated by astronomy and space travel.

I asked my daughters recently if they knew of any career
they could not do because they are female, and they looked at me like I was
from another planet. But Mimi lived when girls were still being guided into
traditionally female careers, if not homemaking.

Today these important careers are options among many that
women can choose from, but in 1969 they were practically a woman’s only
acceptable options. Because of people like Mimi, who fought for gender equality
many years ago, my daughters (and my son) aren’t limited by their gender when
choosing a career today.

Q: The book is written in free verse poetry. What impact do
you think your decision to write in poetry has on the young people who read the
book?

A: That the book is written in free verse poetry partly
reflects the velocity at which the story came to me. I had written a lot of
poetry in graduate school and beyond, so because I was writing this story
quickly, the words flowed naturally in the free verse form. I was open to
writing it in prose, but by about a quarter of the way through the first draft I
decided to keep it in free verse. The intimacy of that form allowed me to tell Mimi’s
story deeply from her perspective.

Readers, young and older alike, may be put off by reading a
book written in poetry. But I hope they’ll try anyway, because they may realize
it’s a great way to absorb a story. I also hope they will try writing their own
story in poetry.

Q: How did you pick the book’s title, and what does it
signify for you?

A: I always work for a long time to find a title that will
summarize the book’s theme or offer a clue to its content.

For Full Cicada Moon, I wanted to bring together Mimi’s love
of astronomy and space travel, the names of each month’s full moon, the passing
of time and the seasons, and Mimi herself—her quest to discover who she is,
that she was named after the song of the cicada, that a periodical cicada
emerges in its fullness after several years’ gestation underground, and that
Mimi’s thirteenth is the year she comes into her fullness. So, after filling
several pages with title ideas, Full Cicada Moon felt perfect to me.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m working on another middle-grade novel and a novel for
women. And I’ve been writing more poetry. There are never enough hours in the
day!

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I was very pleased to learn that Full Cicada Moon
received the Asian/Pacific American Literature Award in the children’s
literature category for 2016, and to know that readers have connected with the
character of Mimi.

Q:
How did you come up with the idea for The Mountain Jews and the Mirror?

A:
I first heard the kernel of the tale from a fellow writer, Ira Berkowitz, and
saw its potential as a children’s story. I was particularly excited
because I’m always on the lookout for stories from Morocco – my mother hails
from Casablanca.

I
suggested to Ira to make it into a story, but he wasn’t interested and gave me
a free hand to do with it what I liked. So I tweaked and adapted it to the
point that I no longer recall the original nugget.

The
truth is, stories are flitting past us all the time. If we could just press the
Halt or Pause button, we might see them. I can’t help
wondering how many stories I miss on a daily basis.

Q:
What do you hope young readers take away from the story?

A:
Sometimes you need a mirror to know how beautiful or wise or special you
are.

Q:
What age group do you think would enjoy the book most?

A:
I think the age group is three to seven.

Q:
As someone who's written for children and adults, do you have a preference?

A:
To be honest, I don’t know yet. Ask me in a few years after I’ve really
immersed myself in writing for children.

Still,
I remember reading books as a child, and after each one I’d hold it close like
a stuffed toy and think, this is the best book I’d ever read. I loved it
with a passion and intensity I don’t find I have today when I read.

Maybe
that’s because I wasn’t yet crammed full of experiences. Less clutter. So a
book had a chance to have an effect, leave a real impression, maybe even save a
kid from a crummy childhood.

Q:
What are you working on now?

A:
I’m working on short stories for adults, and a children’s folktale about the
most obnoxious beggar in the whole shtetl. I particularly like how almost all
the characters in it – the beggars and the holy seer – are women.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. For a previous Q&A with Ruchama King Feuerman, please click here.

About Me

Author, THE PRESIDENT AND ME: GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE MAGIC HAT, new children's book (Schiffer, 2016). Co-author, with Marvin Kalb, of HAUNTING LEGACY: VIETNAM AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY FROM FORD TO OBAMA (Brookings Institution Press, 2011).